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Here's an online business idea for anyone who lives in a "restaurant town". Depending on the size of your city, you could do this on a local-area basis or city-wide.  The idea is to bring restaurants and diners together during slow restaurant booking times.  As we all know, if you go to your favorite restaurant on a Friday night, it's a lot harder to get a table than it is on a Tuesday.  What if you, as a diner, could get a great deal on a restaurant dinner on a Tuesday?  Would you take it rather than waiting until Friday when you may or may not get a table and when you definitely won't get a special?  Even if you wouldn't, plenty would.  What if you, as a restaurateur, could get more diners in on a Tuesday when you have low bookings by offering a dinner special that evening.  Would you do it? Plenty would.  The question is, how does the diner find out about the special or the restaurateur get the word out?

Here's where your online restaurant booking service comes in.  Approach all of the restaurants in the area you want to target and invite them to participate in your service.  The restaurants who participate will need to have internet access.  Essentially, all you need to do is have a page for each restaurant on your website, complete with photo, description, menu and "hot specials".  The restaurant emails you each day with the day's specials and you post these on that restaurant's page on your website.  You do this with every restaurant on your list until you have a databank of restaurant pages.

The other side of the picture is the diner who is looking for a restaurant special for that day.  The diner visits your website, searches for Italian restaurants and your search software provides a list of the Italian restaurants offering specials on that day.  The diner clicks on the link he or she is interested in, is taken to the restaurant's page to view the menu and specials.  If the diner decides to eat there, he or she clicks on another link which leads to the restaurant's email address and makes an email booking.

So, what's in it for you?  This depends.  If your whole site is devoted to the restaurant booking service, you may charge the participating restaurants a weekly marketing fee or a percentage of the dinner bill for the diner who was referred by your service.  Alternatively, if the restaurant booking service is only an adjunct to a broader subject matter, you may be content for payment in the form of increased traffic to your site.

Recommended books:
"Making Money in Cyberspace" by Paul and Sarah Edwards
"Poor Richard's Internet Marketing And Promotions; How To Promote   Yourself, Your Business, Your Ideas Online"  by Peter Kent

Recommended links:
Sydney Restaurants on the Web - http://ausbiz.com/sydney/
Example listing/forms pages - http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~st7146/restaurants.html